Questions tagged [estimation]
Questions related to tips and techniques about software project estimations: development time, effort, team size, software size, execution time, run time resource usage. Please ask on https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic if your question is not directly related to code.
estimation
491
questions
107
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How to estimate a programming task if you have no experience in it [closed]
I am having a difficult time with management asking for estimates on programming tasks that are using third-party controls that I have no prior experience with.
I definitely understand why they would ...
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71
votes
51
answers
8k
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Do you inflate your estimated project completion dates? [closed]
If so why? How much?
I tend to inflate mine a little because I can be overly optimistic.
69
votes
6
answers
30k
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How to estimate download time remaining (accurately)?
Sure you could divide the remaining file size by the current download speed, but if your download speed fluctuates (and it will), this doesn't produce a very nice result. What's a better algorithm ...
- 277k
54
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12
answers
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Giving estimates for large scale projects in an Agile Environment [closed]
My firm just got its first large-scale development project inquiry and I would like to use an Agile process. The client has a vision for the application but openly admits to having very few ...
33
votes
10
answers
143k
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estimating of testing effort as a percentage of development time [closed]
Does anyone use a rule of thumb basis to estimate the effort required for testing as a percentage of the effort required for development? And if so what percentage do you use?
- 453
33
votes
6
answers
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How do I assess the hash collision probability?
I'm developing a back-end application for a search system. The search system copies files to a temporary directory and gives them random names. Then it passes the temporary files' names to my ...
- 169k
28
votes
9
answers
12k
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How much of your work day is spent coding? [closed]
I've been thinking about software estimation lately, and I have a bunch of questions around time spent coding. I'm curious to hear from people who have had at least a couple years of experience ...
- 69k
28
votes
3
answers
31k
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Noise Estimation / Noise Measurement in Image
I want to estimate the noise in an image.
Let's assume the model of an Image + White Noise.
Now I want to estimate the Noise Variance.
My method is to calculate the Local Variance (3*3 up to 21*21 ...
- 4,773
22
votes
1
answer
30k
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How to estimate SQL query timing?
I'm trying to get an rough (order-of-magnitude) estimate of how long time the following query could take:
mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT t1.col1, t1_col4 FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.col1=t2.col1 WHERE col2=...
- 26.2k
20
votes
3
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Can someone explain the concept of an "instance-hour" as used by cloud computing providers?
I am looking at the pricing of various cloud computing platforms, particularly Amazon's EC2, and a lot of the quotes are based on a unit called an Instance-Hour.
I am trying to get a handle on the ...
- 34.7k
19
votes
19
answers
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How to avoid the 80/20 rule in software development
It seems that no matter what my project is, I get through 80% of the work fairly fast. Users and management get excited thinking things are way ahead of schedule, but the pesky 20% of work remaining ...
17
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3
answers
6k
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Algorithm to determine fundamental frequency from potential harmonics
I am attempting to extract a fundamental frequency from a sound source. maybe someone is singing A3 into the microphone, so I want to be detecting ~ 110Hz
my approach is:
FFT 1024 floats
use the ...
- 29.8k
16
votes
7
answers
4k
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Realistic time estimates for progress bars etc
I know I am not the only one who does not like progress bars or time estimates which give unrealistic estimates in software. Best examples are installers which jump from 0% to 90% in 10 seconds and ...
- 29.7k
15
votes
5
answers
4k
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Estimating/forecasting download completion time
We've all poked fun at the 'X minutes remaining' dialog which seems to be too simplistic, but how can we improve it?
Effectively, the input is the set of download speeds up to the current time, and ...
- 20k
14
votes
6
answers
5k
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Does anyone work with Function Points? [closed]
Some questions about Function Points:
1) Is it a reasonably precise way to do estimates? (I'm not unreasonable here, but just want to know compared to other estimation methods)
2) And is the effort ...
- 13.1k
14
votes
2
answers
2k
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Applying HyperLogLog to a sample of the population
The HyperLogLog
algorithm by Flajolet et al describes a clever way to estimate the cardinality
of a set using only a tiny amount of memory. However, it does take into
account all N elements of the ...
- 2,588
11
votes
6
answers
2k
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Is LOC correct parameter for project estimation? [closed]
Is LOC correct parameter for project estimation?
there are so many scenarios where complexity takes much more time for a single line of code,
other than LOC what could be the suggested parameter for ...
- 4,825
10
votes
3
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11k
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Ratio of time spent on coding versus unit testing
What is a typical estimate for coding unit tests given an estimate for coding new functionality? Is this different for estimates to maintain code?
- 23.6k
10
votes
3
answers
3k
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Fit distribution to given frequency values in R
I have frequency values changing with the time (x axis units), as presented on the picture below. After some normalization these values may be seen as data points of a density function for some ...
- 5,075
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8
answers
3k
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Computing estimated times of file copies / movements?
Inspired by this xckd cartoon I wondered exactly what is the best mechanism to provide an estimate to the user of a file copy / movement?
The alt tag on xkcd reads as follows:
They could say "the ...
- 5,435
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4
answers
2k
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Software product pricing/cost estimation
I always had trouble with estimating cost/price of finished software (or programming work), so here are two questions about it.
question 1:
You're asked to write a piece of code for cash (all ...
- 26.2k
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votes
5
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8k
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Why we multiply 'most likely estimate' by 4 in three point estimation?
I have used three point estimation for one of my project.
Formula is
Three Point Estimate = (O + 4M + L ) / 6
That means,
Best Estimate + 4 x Most Likely Estimate + Worst Case Estimate ...
- 442
9
votes
2
answers
4k
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How to resolve integer overflow errors in R estimation
I'm trying to estimate a model using speedglm in R. The dataset is large (~69.88 million rows and 38 columns). Multiplying the number of rows and columns results in ~2.7 billion which is outside the ...
- 123
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1
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What are the limitations of Gitlab Community Edition (Gitlab CE)?
I read this comparison https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/self-managed/feature-comparison/ on Gitlab, lot of things are still unclear. I would like to ask about the limitation at some points:
...
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8
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8
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1k
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How do you explain to a sales person that programming is really difficult and takes time [closed]
I often work with sales and marketing types that cannot figure out how to use Excel, let alone understand the scope of their requests from a technical perspective. Of course, it would not be fair to ...
- 1,447
8
votes
5
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14k
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How Much Time Should be Allotted for Testing & Bug Fixing [closed]
Every time I have to estimate time for a project (or review someone else's estimate), time is allotted for testing/bug fixing that will be done between the alpha and production releases. I know very ...
- 41.1k
8
votes
2
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9k
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How to use linear interpolation estimate current position between two Geo Coordinates?
I have the following available:
last reported lat,lon w/timestamp
target lat,lon
estimated time to target
heading
How can I interpolate an estimated position over time?
I know that's enough to ...
- 30.9k
8
votes
10
answers
8k
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How to work unestimatable tasks into a scrum sprint? [closed]
I am the scrum master for a small team of 4 developers. The project we are working on has a lot of tasks that we have never done before and cannot easily estimate in a sprint planning meeting. What ...
- 678
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5
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Probability theory and project planning [closed]
I'm managing a project that has to be estimated, according to rough requirements and specifications.
Because of that, the estimations on the specific features and tasks are set of discrete values, ...
- 16.2k
8
votes
5
answers
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How can I estimate gaussian (mixture) density from a set of weighted samples? [closed]
Assume I have a set of weighted samples, where each samples has a corresponding weight between 0 and 1. I'd like to estimate the parameters of a gaussian mixture distribution that is biased towards ...
- 2,252
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votes
1
answer
3k
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Block Bundle Adjustment Flow
I am working on bundle block adjustment for finding
X,Y,Z values of image points
Corrected values of camera characteristics(extrinsic parameters etc..)
Corrected values of measurements
In my opinion ...
- 459
8
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3
answers
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How do you measure/estimate size of XML programming effort?
To set the scene - I work in one of those industries that loves estimating and tracking pretty much everything. One of our key metrics is SLOC (source lines of code - declarative and executable ...
- 4,589
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votes
12
answers
937
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How to estimate times when working on a new technology? [closed]
I have been working on Flex for last couple of months and as this was the first time I had to actually do Flex I ended up underestimating the project tasks which resulted in a delay. So how does one ...
- 3,169
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4
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How to change to use Story Points for estimations in Scrum [closed]
Having used "days" as the unit for estimation of tasks in Scrum I find it hard to change to using Story Points. I believe story points should be used as they are more comparable to each other - being ...
- 25.6k
7
votes
2
answers
2k
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Using Scrum in fix-length/fix-priced projects? [closed]
I'm a Scrum newbie and looking to implement Scrum in my company. Obtaining buy-in is not a problem, it is my company and the developers are more than happy to work like this.
The problem is that 75% ...
- 16.9k
7
votes
4
answers
230
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tracking square root of moving value
I have a control loop running at high frequency and need to compute a square root each cycle. Typical square root functions work fine but take excessive time. Since the value I'm taking the square ...
- 5,697
7
votes
1
answer
3k
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R: trouble with mle() error: non-finite finite-difference value [2]
I have a simple x, y data.frame.
mydata <- data.frame(days = 1:96, risk = c(5e-09, 5e-09, 5e-09, 1e-08, 4e-08, 6e-08, 9e-08, 1.5e-07, 4.2e-07,
7.2e-07, ...
- 9,561
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votes
4
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239
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How to predict system resource need?
Is there any software or way to predict system resource need by taking several inputs such as MySQL query read/write ratio, queries executed in a second, properties of tables and databases, maybe some ...
user1055645
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votes
12
answers
2k
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Should project manager ask how much time will it take to implement some functionality? [closed]
Our project manager usually consult developers how many hours they need to implement some functionality asked by client. Is this consistent with the principles of management? Do you or your project ...
- 34.2k
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votes
12
answers
2k
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How does one deal with Hofstadter's law?
When estimating tasks, how does one break from the grip of Hofstadter's law?
- 226k
6
votes
15
answers
743
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What functionality should always be third-party? [closed]
What prompts my question is this post from Jeff Atwood, and this post from Dare Obasanjo. It seems to me that there might be at least a few areas where third-party functionality is a better idea than ...
- 7,143
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votes
5
answers
593
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How do you refine your estimation process? [closed]
Estimating how long any given task will take seems to be one of the hardest parts about software development. At my current shop we estimate tasks in hours at the start of an iteration, but once the ...
- 3,588
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votes
6
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Scrum and Story Points - why ideal man-days not ideal man-hours? [closed]
I am used to thinking about time estimates in the way suggested by Joel Spolsky - that if a scheduled item takes more than 16 hours, it should be divided into smaller tasks. Now, I am implementing ...
- 2,845
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votes
2
answers
4k
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Estimating Time on Tasks [closed]
We have just started doing scrum at my company. We are spending a bit of time estimating Effort using planning poker and then when the detailed tasks are worked out a time estimate is put on each task....
- 3,492
6
votes
7
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1k
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How to manage agile development when the team is not stable? [closed]
I have been using agile approaches (XP and Scrum) for my projects for several years with great results. But in all cases, all members of the dev team were committed 100% to the project.
Now I am ...
- 19.8k
6
votes
1
answer
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Numerical Method for SARIMAX Model using R
My friend is currently working on his assignment about estimation of parameter of a time series model, SARIMAX (Seasonal ARIMA Exogenous), with Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) method. The data ...
- 103
6
votes
1
answer
808
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Curvature estimation from image
I have images like this ones:
In this images the red line is what I want to get from the image. Original images do not have that red lines, but only that green road.
What I want is to estimate the ...
- 4,250
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votes
4
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2k
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Time estimation for a user story
How do you estimate the time needed to implement a user story? If it's something you had done before you know how long it'll take. But what about if it's completely new to you? How much time do you ...
- 6,736
5
votes
10
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How to decide: build from scratch or reverse engineer off the shelf solution
Let's say someone asked me to build them a youtube clone with a lot of customizations to support a whole bunch of wacky things they want to do.
How do I decide if it's better for me to build from ...
- 33k
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votes
4
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Story estimates in Scrum [closed]
We started a project that will be managed with Scrum/XP. We wrote the whole product backlog upfront for evaluation purposes. We're making sure all stories are customer-centric and we're evaluating ...
- 104k